Newsroom
What a day to go on a tour of the CNN headquarters in Atlanta! The place was going mad covering all the events in London which I had only found out about while queueing for my ticket. Such is the isolation of the backpacker. Horrible twist for a city which only the day before had been celebrating so.
The tour itself was excellent and quite inspirational, maybe even something other than teaching that a history degree may be useful for. Apart from the obvious CNN is a pretty impressive organisation, I would like to see the BBC and compare, however in the atrium - the one with the longest free standing escalator of 8 floors in the world - the NZ flag they had was wrong, white stars bordered by red. The tour leader was most embarrassed and i hope a couple of fact checkers get shot. The most mystifying part for me is how could a flag maker of the size that someone like CNN would buy from get it so wrong.
In my pursuit of culinary diversity in the US I felt that grits really needed to be tried. Again taking cues from Lonely Planet the Flying Biscuit (read Scone) was visited and grits promtly served. And with assurances from the guy sitting next to me that these were about the best grits to be had anywhere I stared with trepidation at the thick grey sludge before me. Apparently it's some sort of ground corn cooked with cream with the end result coming out something like coldish porridge made from tapioca - like two nightmares combined. Thankfully there was a generous portion of scrambled eggs to chase it down and finally a place with an espresso machine and not just deli dreck.
In the time it took to eat this every MARTA station had been issued 5 heavily armed troopers menacing around the entrance. It's so obvious - ratchet up the alert to orange, post the army and wind everyone's tensions that little bit tighter. Yawn.
The Martin Luther King birthplace, church, gravesite etc was very moving and I'm glad that I braved the walk. A bit like Fiji there is nowhere to hide when you're the only white guy on the street and you're instantly a target for the abundant panhandlers a situation made worse by having absolutely no money still needing to visit a bank. I'm really glad that I read John H. Griffin's book Black like me before coming as it really helped me view the South, just wish I could've got to New Orleans where most of the story takes place.
I was going to go to the Braves/Cubs game but Greg, the guy I was staying with, was having a cook out and so I went to that instead to meet some southern folks. And very nice they were too, extremely enterprising all of them seemed to have started their own businesses and as a group had started a church a couple fo years ago.
The tour itself was excellent and quite inspirational, maybe even something other than teaching that a history degree may be useful for. Apart from the obvious CNN is a pretty impressive organisation, I would like to see the BBC and compare, however in the atrium - the one with the longest free standing escalator of 8 floors in the world - the NZ flag they had was wrong, white stars bordered by red. The tour leader was most embarrassed and i hope a couple of fact checkers get shot. The most mystifying part for me is how could a flag maker of the size that someone like CNN would buy from get it so wrong.
In my pursuit of culinary diversity in the US I felt that grits really needed to be tried. Again taking cues from Lonely Planet the Flying Biscuit (read Scone) was visited and grits promtly served. And with assurances from the guy sitting next to me that these were about the best grits to be had anywhere I stared with trepidation at the thick grey sludge before me. Apparently it's some sort of ground corn cooked with cream with the end result coming out something like coldish porridge made from tapioca - like two nightmares combined. Thankfully there was a generous portion of scrambled eggs to chase it down and finally a place with an espresso machine and not just deli dreck.
In the time it took to eat this every MARTA station had been issued 5 heavily armed troopers menacing around the entrance. It's so obvious - ratchet up the alert to orange, post the army and wind everyone's tensions that little bit tighter. Yawn.
The Martin Luther King birthplace, church, gravesite etc was very moving and I'm glad that I braved the walk. A bit like Fiji there is nowhere to hide when you're the only white guy on the street and you're instantly a target for the abundant panhandlers a situation made worse by having absolutely no money still needing to visit a bank. I'm really glad that I read John H. Griffin's book Black like me before coming as it really helped me view the South, just wish I could've got to New Orleans where most of the story takes place.
I was going to go to the Braves/Cubs game but Greg, the guy I was staying with, was having a cook out and so I went to that instead to meet some southern folks. And very nice they were too, extremely enterprising all of them seemed to have started their own businesses and as a group had started a church a couple fo years ago.
2 Comments:
Hey montombo,
You are forest gump, you seem to be in the exact right place to view historic events as they unfold.
I hope your silence re. chipotle is not a sign of indifference to its majesty. I know you've seen alot in america, but surely the sweet taste ranks somewhere amongst the highlights.
Nice idea reading "on the road", i read in america too.
Another book to read would be "underworld" by don delillo, i'm reading it at the moment. Its an epic book, but it speaks of the very fabric of america....baseball, gangsters, frank sinatra, condoms, harry truman etc...
Dave, yeah sorry about the lack of update on Chipolte it seems to have gotten lost somewhere.
I sampled it a number of times in New York and found it to be delicious on each of those occaisions. I generally go for the full Burrito with black beans, fresh salsa and just a dab of the hot stuff.
Thanks for the book tip, just bought Hitch Hikers Guide but chopping that so will look out for Underworld next, probably in Seattle at the end of the week.
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